Even though I am a subscriber for 7 bucks a month I am seemingly unable to access the full lenght version of this podcast episode/Youtube video even though I am logged in here. Any ideas?
At the beginning of the podcast, Sam notes that he mostly agrees with you, Glenn, about Affirmative Action and the position of Blacks in US society.
You come back with the idea that he should "think for himself".
Sam is being more realistic - nobody can become an expert on everything. Everybody ends up choosing WHO to believe, more than deciding for themselves WHAT to believe. Listeners & readers who don't write comments even more so - and those who have too much life to spend much time on the internet at all even more so.
Tribal beliefs are important for normal folk to reduce their own cognitive load. We sort of get to choose our intellectual leaders, mostly, but once chosen it's mostly accepting what those leaders say and see how it solves your own problems.
A few of us, and only a few, are able to rationally criticize the leaders in our own tribe. You are one of the few, and like Sam, I start with the assumption that you're right.
Except ... a week or two ago when John said "Trump is an idiot", and you replied "Trump is an idiot." Do you really believe that Trump is a bigger idiot than Biden? What was Trump's bad policy?
Worse than Biden's reducing US oil production (sending prices higher, and more cash to Russia)? Worse than running away from Afghanistan, with essentially no plan after trashing the plan Trump's guys were drawing up?
Worse than inflation causing $1.3 trillion extra stimulus cash?
Worse than Biden telling Putin it would be OK for Russia to have a small incursion into Ukraine?
Really, John still criticizes Trump, like his famous NY Times employer seems to require - but you don't have to fully accept evidence free insults, nor agree with them if you don't. If you do, you should give an example, like:
Obama is a liar - "you can keep your doctor".
Or Bush 41 "Read my Lips".
But in general, normal folk look for believable, mostly honest folk, that they can believe in. Then they do believe in those folks.
Hi Glenn, off subject but may I suggest you and/or Sam Harris invite Stephen Meyer regarding his book "The Return of the God Hypothesis". He is very enlightening regarding the divide between science and God.
You are so right to defend Murray, or anybody's, right to ask the question. How much is genetics? How much is nurture/ culture/ living conditions/ everything else.
50:50? 40: 60? 80:20? Anti-science haters of Murray who insisted on 0% genetics are increasingly being proved wrong.
But we can't do anything about genetics, yet we can maybe affect and improve each child's situation. Maybe. Because spending gov't and charity money on poor people seems to have been tried, and failed to work on many.
One idea that's terrible, tho Murray might endorse it somewhat, is Universal Basic Income (UBI). Paying to be lazy is terrible - see Mississippi and response to the Covid stimulus. Instead we need a Job Guaranty of State, National, or Country service, to hire everybody, which hasn't seriously been tried. It's based on the theory that most poor folk need to earn self-respect, which can't be given, but must be earned.
There might be other programs to reward other good behavior, like getting married, or being single without kids or pregnancy.
I wish there were some policy ideas you were thinking should be tried - we should all be humble enough to admit none know what "will work". But some policies will work better than others.
Glenn, it would be good to be more clear about what "racism" can mean:
1) The races are different in some way. Visibly.
2) Some races are superior, others are inferior.
a) in IQ - intelligence, cognitive ability, getting to the "right answer" thru logic
b) in physical measures, like height, weight, breast or penis size, hair color, or eye color, or
amount of melanin in their skin.
3) That, based on racial differences, they can be treated differently as members of a group, irrespective of individual differences.
(Jeffrey Peoples is also a target of this comment - what does "racism" mean to him).
Race is real, and visible by normal eyesight, as well as increasingly by genetic analysis.
(3) treating individuals differently because of race is already illegal, discrimination is illegal - yet different races exhibit different outcomes.
The problem of different outcomes doesn't seem so large in the NBA. Even tho there are more Hispanics in America than Blacks, there are far far fewer Hispanics than Blacks playing professional basketball. Is that racism? Culture/ nurture? Genetics? Is it so bad that the rules need to be changed?
Blacks are, as a group, taller. Genetically. Culturally Blacks play more basketball, younger, than do Hispanics, who play more soccer (football to the rest of the world).
Trying to imagine rules to allow more "equity" in the NBA between Blacks and Hispanics would essentially destroy the main meritocracy criteria of "most winning (w/o cheating)".
Here are some bad possible equality rules: - Hispanics should score as many points, so they get 10, 20, & 30 points for their shots, not just 1, 2, & 3.
- Each team needs as many Hispanics as Blacks
- Each team needs to have Hispanics play as many minutes as Blacks play
- The total amount of money paid to Hispanics must be at least as much as paid to Blacks
... all of these equality rules destroy the game.
This is similar to ending sexism by comparing XY males and XX females and trying for equality.
XY people ARE genetically different than XX people - and real men are XY people who identify as men; real women are XX people who identify as women. We don't have language for XY people who do NOT identify as men, and "mentally ill" has been rejected, altho it might be true. (I'd suggest ‘quasi-women’ for such an XY person as Lia Thomas, because q'she is not a real woman. Q'her winning in women's swimming is not fair. Q’she is not a real woman, but q’she is a q’woman. Elliot Page is a q’man, since q’he transitioned in 2021.)
On math ability (math IQ), there's a good Putnam exam. Last year MIT won all of the 5 top spots, with East Asian men, as well as the top woman (in top 15, not even top 10).
No Blacks, no Whites. It might be that there have been 0 blacks as any of the top 5 since this competition started 82 years ago - it's certainly the case that fewer than 10%, and even less than 1% of the winners have been Black. Far far less than 50% or even 10% have been women (Larry Summers was totally correct about few top female physicists - but he was still pushed out of Harvard for speaking this truth.)
MIT abolished SAT scores last year - this year they are re-instating them.
To be the top in just about anything requires genetics (talent?) AND cultural nurture AND individual effort.
Murray-haters implicitly or explicitly say that genetics have 0% influence. This is certainly false, based on all we know about genetics today, but we even knew that then. For group IQ, how much is genetics versus everything else is much less clear. 50%? 33%?
Why did Glenn Loury or John McWhorter succeed? Genetically gifted, some level of culture- nurture, and individual effort. (Same reasons I'm good but not nearly as great).
We who want Blacks to do better in America, and the world, should be agreeing that culture is important, and improvable. Poor Blacks, like poor Whites, and like all poor dumb people (like Forrest Gump), need to follow 4 main rules of behavior - behavior that is under their control, despite other influences:
1) Finish High School (or GED); 2) no babies until marriage; 3) no criminal behavior; 4) keep a job for at least a year.
Poor Whites, like poor Hispanics, have almost always violated one or more of these clear social rules. Also poor Blacks - but in even greater percentages.
Talk about IQ distracts from the far more important issue of behavior. Like Will Smith's criminal small assault because of a verbal insult against his open-marriage wife. Even if low IQ is part of the reason that poor people are bad at following these rules, the key social issue should be in helping more poor people follow these rules more often.
"...the key social issue should be in helping more poor people..."
I think that gets steamrolled by the key political issues, the key mercantile concerns, the key NEA/university concerns. The concerns of the huge Woke, Inc., industry.
You attacked the matter from a very logical perspective. That's the way I look at things, too. However, too many people benefit personally from keep the waters muddy. If there is no agreed upon definition of "racism," all the better to them.
To Sam's argument that we should consciously blind ourselves to group differences (if they exist) in mental facilities: While well intentioned, that is a foolish and futile position. Does Sam believe that the Chinese are not going to investigate the genetic determinates of intelligence, unconstrained by his racial sensitivities? That seems about as likely to me as the snowball's chance of escaping hell. And are science and policy going to be in a better place if the Chinese are the thought leaders who have mastered the science? I think not. Willful ignorance is not going to be helpful. Let's try to understand reality, not hide from it. That ain't going to work.
The Cheerland-Watson Center in Shenzhen perhaps answers the first question. A 180-acre state-of-the-art research facility in China -- named after the Nobel prize-winning American who was cancelled in his own country.
Meanwhile, here in the good ol' USA, we're woke-splainin' how a man can jump into a swimming pool and magically transform into a woman.
Just sticking head in here from seeing Rob Montz's “Harvard Canceled Its Best Black Professor. Why?” This is about Roland Fryer, who I'd always heard good things about, and the ruthless end to his career.
Can't rate You high enough, Professor Loury! If You happen across this, bow and kiss Your feet!
Anybody belonging to Common Sense should check it out. Actually, it's be worth one month's subscription to watch the 25 min. documentary.
I think I can get to where Sam is aiming. No one collects data on how many blondes get into Harvard, or Bronx Science, etc. I'd like race, creed and gender differences to be just as irrelevant. But right now there is an entire government, academic, and business "industrial complex" that collects, interprets, and takes remedial action based on this data. I'm sure they are not prepared to give up their livelihoods. Entire business models are based on manipulation of this data. Would that it were not so, but Sam will have to wait a bit for his wish.
Let me first say that I admire Sam Harris and subscribe to his podcast. I share his desire to live in a world in which skin color is as incidental as hair color. However, I was surprised by his question about why we should investigate group level academic performance. Glenn’s answer to this was perfect. As long as the wokes allege racism to be the cause of disparities, then we will need to gather facts and data to prove that racism is not the cause of the disparities. Murray’s “Facing Reality” was the inevitable response to false accusations about racism’s role in our society, regardless of how sad it was to read that book. Harris is way too smart and thoughtful to not know this.
Glenn, I believe you got the better of Sam on this question. Your vigorous defense of intellectual curiosity and the need for it in academia and elsewhere was as articulate and cogent as any I’ve ever read. And I believe Harris’s rather weak response that perhaps there are some subjects so fraught or disquieting that we should simply ignore them and compel others to do so too is intellectually dishonest or at least very weak. Keep up the good work!
Respect both these men greatly. Sam especially because he dared to interview Charles Murray. I’ve listened to Glenn a lot more, and especially enjoyed his talks with John McWhorter. I have to say, while Sam’s argument about race should be regarded like hair color would be neat, it isn’t and part of why it isn’t is that there are all kinds of movements and agendas going on to bring about “equity” for non-whites, so we cannot just not pay attention. We need to figure out how to bring about the non-interest Sam wishes for. I can’t say I know a lot about why or how IQ develops as it does, but I have to think that Asians studying 365 days a year bodes well for them, while whites studying only 2/3rd of that time may not end up as intelligent, and that is only ONE factor out of many many factors. How much do whites dumb themselves down with drugs or alcohol for example? How would an IQ test done on men using only feminine questions turn out? Ditto, women tested on predominantly male subjects? True, it is not how we use IQ testing, but I think I’m making a useful point here. I don’t think we are all truly blank slates to start with and how we live has impact on our ultimate intelligence.
I had a similar reaction to Sam's hair color analogy. It's not really "we" as a society who make that call. It's the blondes. And I suspect if blondes voted 95 percent for one political party, there'd be 500 political action committees with the word "blonde" in them.
P.S. To bring about the non-interest that Sam wishes for, we ought to stop using quotas in employment and university applications and make these things merit-based. If I’m a business, I want the most qualified person doing the work I need someone to do and I don’t care about anything else and I set the standard for those qualifications. If I’m a dean at a university I want the smartest and brightest in my school. Those who don’t make the grade should go to lesser schools until they can meet the grade. I am sure this sounds just horrible, but please know I am very empathetic and want all people to succeed, so please read on. It comes down to economics, always! A difficulty with the university example is that schools are publicly funded and THAT is why the dean cannot just accept the brightest and smartest and most able students. As a society comprising all colors, races, creeds, religions, both sexes, blonds and brunettes and red heads, curly and straight hair, and whatever other categories, it behooves us to understand our capabilities and differences and to do all we can to be a “rising tide lifting all boats.” Can’t do that by pretending differences do not exist. Example: More women for time out of mind played little girl games as children than those who didn’t. So. Work with it. Not against it. Maybe they make the best doctors, if we can help them through the maths they need to know that have proved easier for men to learn than women.
Sorry if too long. TYTY both-a YOUSE. Hope to listen to podcast today, mebbe.
SH: He I perceived in hindsight to be a kind of canary in the coal mine.
Sh: But I viewed it as morally important to do,
GL: That's a question of cause and effect, and so on. And what manner of society will we have become if not only asking the question is forbidden but defending the asking of the question is forbidden?
GL: *** You know-nothing, anti-intellectual thugs. I mean, the people who want to shut up a discussion about this question and who want to make it a sign of your decency and your legitimacy for membership in society to castigate and ostracize Charles Murray, which I am not going to do, those people are a threat to civilization, in my opinion. ***
SH: So we just simply don’t have the data on how many blondes got into Harvard last year. And nor would anyone think to have that data. We don’t want the data, nobody cares. How do we get there with respect to skin color and religion and anything else? That’s where I think I would want to be. The path open to us there is to cease to pay attention to these variables.
"Coming Apart" was also mentioned on M. DeBoer's Substack. But MAY attempt them in chronological order, IF at all. Hoping to.
As I posted before, genetics and effect on intelligence most definitely SHOULD be investigated. I don't think CRISPR should have been investigated without some group reviewing what the long-range effects of Super-Intelligence MIGHT be. Made up of, mostly, non-PhDs, IMHO. Given, human beings don't even have the mental capacity to fully understand what Super-Intelligence would actually turn out to BE.
My former mentor was BIG fan of Transhumanism but feared Super-Intelligence. THis is logically untenable. You can SAY Transhumanism is all about extending human longevity. Weeeel then.. It has the nasty SIDE-EFFECT of being path to Super-Intelligence. I've only seen the question raised once, by a non-scientists, and never seen it answered ANYWHERE. What WILL happen when some-a the population gains Super-Intelligence and the rest-a us slaves don't? Or the slaves get a lower-order form of AI or super-genes or whatever it turns out to be?
What Musk is doing at Neuralink? Should NOT be investigated until the issue of Super-Intelligence is at least LOOKED at. It progresses same as CRISPR. "It's for MEDICAL PURPOSES! SAVE people!!" Yeah, but right there on the website they answer the question if technique will be used for non-medical purposes. Just as You would KNOW it would happen. Answer: Yup, we envision it probably would be.
On the other side-a the balance scale, former-mentor says what Russia and China are CURRENTLY doing in the way of Transhumanism is horrific. Dunno. He never said and I didn't press. Should-a. But can imagine it'd be the worst. Well, actually can't imagine anything at ALL about it.
Me? Let NATO consortium do that work on AI and Transhumanism. Radical? Super-Intelligence radical DEPARTURE. Basically creating a new species of Homo s. if looked at in a certain Way. Let other countries police any country that's wants to rule the world with Super-Intelligence and Transhumanism in general.
"SH: So we just simply don’t have the data on how many blondes got into Harvard last year. And nor would anyone think to have that data. We don’t want the data, nobody cares. How do we get there with respect to skin color and religion and anything else? That’s where I think I would want to be. The path open to us there is to cease to pay attention to these variables."
I'm totally, completely, and ABSOLUTELY SIMPATICO with SH's view of race. Same as mine, basically. Part-raised by Black man I worked for in formative years. Long story.
Difference being that blonde's culture/experience aren't in any way SIMILAR to Black's culture/experience. Me? Aggregate data should be kept on Blacks. And mebbe blondes too. That seem far-fetched to me, but who knows.
I think if we did not know what we don’t know, then you could argue that ignorance is bliss, but when we DO know what we don’t know, I would say it’s better to try to find the answers. If there are no questions asked because we don’t know that we don’t know, it’s fine. The trouble is that when we there are questions but no answers, people try to answer with lies.
This is all to say I believe knowledge is power and the truth will always prevail, eventually. The questions are better answered than unanswered, and even if the lies are believed now, future generations will look back and see the truth, but only if we answer those questions. The problem with certain people now is that facts are irrelevant to them but again, if we don’t seek answers to questions we will allow those people to write the answers with their lies. So I would say that there is nothing that is better not known
I am with Sam Harris when he wonders just why Charles Murray wrote his latest book. Murray himself took pains during the interview with Glenn Loury to say that the disparities he found between the races were most evident in the middle, and not so much on the extreme ends. Okay, so what does that really mean? But he is not going to comment on what it all means, he is just giving us the data. Come on. Conservative writer Wilfred Reilly has written about the i.q. scores of ethnic groups around the world, which highlights that many European populations have i.q. scores very close to African Americans, and also how average i.q. scores for African Americans and other groups have changed/increased pretty dramatically over the years, which points strongly towards environmental rather than genetic factors being most important. Reilly's points need to be explored in any discussion about ethnicity and i.q. Why not ask Murray about that? I read Murray's book Coming Apart, and thought he had a lot of good info and insights, but he also struck me as having an agenda, and being rather obsessed with the purchasing habits of upper middle class professionals, blaming them for every ill besetting less educated, less wealthy white Americans, whose economic plight he otherwise described very eloquently through his statistics and research. Murray deserves to be treated respectfully, he has a right to speak his mind, and present his research, but I don't think he deserves special treatment either. His research should be open to critique, like any other scholar.
"His research should be open to critique, like any other scholar." If there is any scholar that has been critiqued, I think Charles Murray would be it, or at least very near the top of the list.
Also, I was listening to the Charles Murray, Sam Harris podcast, and they specifically mentioned that of course environment can be a factor. But that doesn't mean genetics isn't also a factor. Their comparison to height I think was very apt.
If a person is malnourished they might not grow as tall. But that doesn't mean height doesn't have a strong genetic component. Same certainly applies to IQ.
Yes, I see the genetics-environmental interaction. I am not an expert, but from what I have read, intelligence, as recorded by I Q tests may be more malleable than, say, height. However it is, there is a good argument for enriching the environment of children as much as possible.
Charles Murray isn’t deplatformed. He has been pushed off the stage a few times. Regardless of that, his voice is widely available, his writings are on lots of bookshelves, including libraries. It is unfortunate that there are people out there who would try to use forms of force or coercion to prevent Murray from being on a stage that voluntarily requests him, and I find those people contemptible. But, alas Glenn, I find Murray contemptible as well. The fact that he has written some books that has had some political influence doesn’t make him less contemptible in my mind. Not having read the Bell Curve and some of Human Achievement would not have impoverished my mind. Not having read his other books likely hasn’t impoverished my mind either.
I commend you, Sam Harris, and Coleman Hughes for engaging with him. I think even contemptible people, if they have some popular appeal, should be wrestled with in debate and discussion rather than censored by good and reasonable people. But I am bewildered that you and John view him with such reverence and affection.
From every interview I have watched with him, he has demonstrated a faith in the notion that black people as a group are “dumb” (his word in the Bell Curve for people on the low end), and the reason for them being dumb is genetic. Murray confidently believes that the iq disparities among racial groups are due to genetic variations in racial groups, yet such confidence can only be had with the faith of a bigot.
It is*possible* such correlations and disparities are genetically grounded, but it’s also possible that they can be explained by culture. The confidence he expresses in interviews about the genetic causation is not rationally justified. And I would argue that the cultural explanation has better evidence. Despite 200+ years of brutal oppression and destruction of black Americans and their capacity to develop as individuals and communities, the theory he has faith in is that the limitations black people now face are genetically bounded. Anyone who thinks that 60 years of the Party of Slavery parasitically feeding off black victimhood, resentment, and insecurity by sabotaging their efforts to succeed with faux reparations, counter productive affirmative action, and political patronage counts as any semblance of an experiment to offset 200 years of brutality that just might affect disparities in cognitive abilities probably has deep seated bigotries about black people, aka racism, at least when no one is looking.
The cause of such disparities is extremely important when it comes to how we approach those disparities from a societal perspective. If we have the faith of racial bigots such as Murray that those disparities are genetic, putting in resources to change the cultural practices of black people as a group would a futile enterprise. Which is why Murray’s attitude appears to be that society must come to just accept the disparities: they won’t change. On the other hand, if you have the much more reasonable faith that disparities are due to culture, putting in resources the right way could have dramatic impact on those disparities.
The right way, btw, is not how the Democratic Party and BLM loyalists are currently proposing cultural change: e.g. declaring that the pursuit intellectual achievement is “whiteness” and lowering standards for black people.
And speaking of platforms, I’d really like a platform. Rather than defending bigots like Murray and expanding his platform, how about using your platform to help others, such as my glorious and humble self, to get theirs. It saddens me that my essay is still lingering in darkness while illustrious people such as yourself sweat about Charles Murray not being able to spread his idea that black people as a group are doomed to have a lower iq forever because of their genetics.
My essay, just in case you actually read this comment:
I'll probably be excoriated for expressing agnosticism on the matter of nature versus nurture vis-à-vis racial differences but for what it’s worth I personally found the phenomenon of Black excellence in competitive Scrabble to be an interesting and relevant datapoint for the cultural side of the debate.
Excoriated for agnosticism? Not by me. But I implore you to investigate more sources that support a cultural explanation. It is the righteous faith, but people should arrive there only after they have investigated it for themselves.
Have you read Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell? Id recommend that as an introduction.
Yeah I have that book on my bookshelf and a couple of others by Sowell, but haven't read most of his most popular works since he's been such a prolific writer. Personally I found the Scrabble data point I linked to above to be more convincing evidence of the cultural thesis than some of the arguments offered by Sowell, but I'll admit that I haven't read enough of Sowell to be informed.
Have you actually read the book on your shelf, or just have it there?
And I read your comment about Nigerian Scrabble players. Definitely a fascinating data point; dunno if it outweighs the many data points, for example, in Black Rednecks, but certainly deserves a glorious place alongside them. I appreciate that you linked to it.
I think this is an outstanding comment and I look forward to reading your longer essay. It seems to me that the key point that causes upset with Murray is a nature vs nurture question where he seems to suggest that black people as a whole are genetically inferior or perhaps so disadvantaged that it's more or less the same thing. Glenn and Sam do not seem to take him to task on this very important point. When Murray was on the Glenn show to discuss the last book (which I have not read), Murray went out of his way to say that he was just presenting the data but that drawing conclusions is too controversial. My sense is that he did something similar in the Bell Curve. That is terribly weak and anyone giving him a platform (Glenn in this case) should clearly force this issue. That's what platforms like this are for.
I'm not sure that I think he should be canceled (and it seems like a partial cancellation in the sense that he's been making his way as a prominent public intellectual for decades despite publishing books about racial inferiority). But, let's not pretend to be surprised about why people are very upset about him.
This seems like a blind spot. Glenn and John get outraged about fuzzy logic, obfuscation and weak argumentation on the left. I'm on board for that. But, it is of great importance to maintain this level of rigor when dealing with your own side and your own friends. If you put the boots to Kendi and Hannah-Jones, you should do the same for Murray. With all the ruckus here over woke topics, it's frustrating to see Murray get a free (or close to free) pass from Glenn on his project of implied eugenics.
If I'm missing something here, or am lost in my own blind spot, please let me know.
“With all the ruckus here over woke topics, it's frustrating to see Murray get a free (or close to free) pass from Glenn on his project of implied eugenics.”
If Murray’s faith is true, the only way black people as a group can significantly improve cognitive abilities as demonstrated by iq scores and STEM employment is through a breeding program.
I don’t think anyone could come to such a faith without a large rock of bigotry lodged in their soul.
Glenn and John do seem to be blind to that spot. If they are truly Murray’s friend though, they should not allow their affection to blind them, and be willing to see faults and flaws, and then point out that spot. It is repulsive.
Faith has nothing to do with this. Look at the data, if the data changes, then update your views.
Right now, the data strongly suggest there are population level differences.
That shouldn't tell us anything about how we treat each other. But it might offer some other explanations on why the trillions we've spent on poverty reduction don't seem to do much
“Population level genetic differences” is an irrelevant observation. If you take a population that has blue eyes and a population that has brown eyes, those populations are going to have genetic differences. You are inferring incorrectly what faith I’m referring to.
When we allow others to decide what information is allowed to be propagated, we don't learn the lessons of Nanjing or My Lai. We don't discover root causes and develop effective perspectives or solutions. It is a voluntary mental handicap to accept limitations on what can be known.
"You cannot understand the public debate about race and intelligence if you don’t read The Bell Curve. Attempts to make Murray persona non grata, to paint him as a racist and a hollow ideologue, simply don’t hold water. Attempts to deplatform him and hound him out of the public sphere are even worse."
One of these three points is not like the others. The first point—The Bell Curve should be read—is right. It is consequential so it should be read, just as the writings of John C. Calhoun should be read. The third point, deplatforming is bad, also true. But the second point, that "attempts to paint him as a racist and a hollow ideologue simply don't hold water" dismisses the SUBSTANCE of the critics' case against Murray without actually engaging our arguments. Why do the criticisms not hold water? I wrote a careful essay explaining why I believe it is accurate to call Murray racist: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/why-is-charles-murray-odious
Murray saw it, did not respond to the arguments, and just commented "I guess I'm odious." I object to the way that defenses of Murray's right to be heard and to have his arguments evaluated often turn into a substantive defense of his ideas as being valuable and his scholarship as being good. The fact that he shouldn't have been chased out of Middlebury College does not mean that he is not a racist or that the Bell Curve is not a shoddy piece of work. Harris says "I don't think he's a racist." But he seems unfamiliar with the arguments critics make to show Murray is racist. (I have also extensively critiqued Harris' shoddy reasoning, including his failure to grasp the critiques of Murray's work and challenge Murray on them. Harris didn't respond either. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/10/being-mr-reasonable )
Why the anger against Murray? “The fact that he shouldn't have been chased out of Middlebury College does not mean that he is not a racist or that the Bell Curve is not a shoddy piece of work.” The Murray-haters were wrong to chase him off Middlebury’s platform. If you can’t refer to a better work on IQ than The Bell Curve, your “shoddy piece” insult starts to apply even more strongly to your own 2017 piece. Where is such neutral scholarship? Rage without a better alternative is self-defeating.
I’m enraged against Murray-haters, because today it is claimed by many that Black failures are due to White structural racism. Blacks fail, and it’s MY fault (since I’m white). This is false, and enraging. Those that fail do so because they fail at one or more of the clear 4 steps to take out of poverty:
1) graduate from High School (knowing how to read, write, and do some math);
2) have no babies before marriage;
3) stay out of jail, commit no crimes;
4) get some job and keep it for a year or more.
Whites who are poor are poor for failing at one or more of these – ain’t ‘cause ‘a no racism. But Blacks who are poor when failing to do these steps? Oh yeah, THAT’s racism, structural racism.
So every time Black kids play basketball instead of studying for school, or even going to school to graduate from High School, I’m guilty. Blacks having sex before and outside of marriage and having babies (with fathers not there; some 75% of Black kids) – my guilt. Guilt but no orgasm. Blacks commit crimes, like killing other gang members or bystanders – clearly it’s White folks’ fault. Blacks refuse to stay in some BS job, or something where you have show up on time, or not drugged out nor drunk – Witey’s fault. Eddie Murphy explained it decades ago: “I hate Whitey because he’s white: W – I – T – E”.
Bullshit. 90% or more of US poverty is based on individual failure to follow the 4 steps out of poverty. The sad reality is too few Blacks choose, due to IQ, culture, parents, school, gov’t programs, too few Blacks choose to follow the steps out of poverty. But society talks about racism, talks about racism, and talks about who is a racist and why.
[The above was my conclusion, the rest discusses your article in more detail.]
Your piece claims Murray IS a racist, as in para 4:
“For it can be very easily proven that Murray is a man with a strong racial bias against Black people, insofar as he fails to respect them as equal human beings and believes them to be, on average, inferior to white people in matters of intelligence, creativity, and inherent human worth... if Murray is not a racist, the word “racist” is empty of meaning.”
You use the same Murray-hate (Murray Derangement Syndrome?) argumentation that you claim so many other haters do when you “stretch the case against him beyond its limits”. Belief in lower group average intelligence does NOT mean lower inherent human worth.
But it’s very very true that economic success is often equated with moral superiority, and IQ or other “smarts” is expected to lead one to become rich. “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” (Stanford unofficial sweatshirt motto.)
Murray’s ACTUAL appearance on The Glenn Show shows him as quite respectful of Glenn, treating him fully as an equal human being. Which is possible for those who believe in the Jeffersonian ideal that all people are created equal in the eyes of God and should be treated and judged as individuals based on their own behavior and characteristics, as MLK dreamt. The importance of this is that individual treatment is the only realistic way to behave to others if Blacks are, on average, inferior to Whites, Hispanics, and Asians in the matter of IQ / g – intelligence / SATscores.
Your claims about what Murray writes:
“1- Black people tend to be dumber than white people, which is probably partly why white people tend to have more money than black people. This is likely to be partly because of genetics, a question that would be valid and useful to investigate.
2- Black cultural achievements are almost negligible. Western peoples have a superior tendency toward creating “objectively” more “excellent” art and music. Differences in cultural excellence across groups might also have biological roots.
3- We should return to the conception of equality held by the Founding Fathers, who thought black people were subhumans. A situation in which white people are politically and economically dominant over black people is natural and acceptable.
On #3, you never show that Murray wants a conception of equality where black people are subhuman. You show he likes the limited government of the early USA, and its ideals. YOU, Nathan, are adding the part about Blacks as subhuman, and ascribing it the Founding Fathers, and by implication any who admire these most admirable men. Murray, like most Libertarians, is against most post New Deal regulations and expansions of gov’t power.
On #1, you admit the fact that Black SAT (& IQ) scores are lower: “Murray and Herrnstein report the (undisputed) empirical finding that black scores on IQ tests are—as a statistical average—lower than white scores on IQ tests.” yet claim the rage against Murray is justified because of his racism. I claim that a lot of the rage is against that reality of IQ difference, which also often translates into disputing that IQ measures “smart”, or claims IQ & SAT & all math tests are “racist”.
Your Too Long screed didn’t quite define racism, but comes close in describing Murray’s thought:
“Charles Murray thinks black people are inferior to white people, and having them in socially, economically, and politically subordinate positions is acceptable…. “
Still, what is “having them”? In the case of slavery, clearly, but also Democratic Party Jim Crow laws, laws and policies that require them to be subordinate, or forbid them from equal use. That racism is Illegal, and very popularly illegal, treating two similar behaving individuals differently based on group average differences. That’s what “racism” means, and a racist is somebody who advocates that policy. Of course, as almost noted by Glenn and Sam, all Affirmative Action programs are racist, advocating promoting Blacks who are just a little bit less qualified over a White.
But how much is “just a little bit”? That’s a huge important part of the controversy that is seldom quantified, and is not done either by Murray, Loury, nor Harris, either. After CRA of 1964, the expectation was that AA positive discrimination would remove barriers and become ever less needed over time as free and natural equality led towards more equal outcomes. AA + freedom + white guilt + welfare (that rewards bad lifestyle choices with gov’t cash) has seen an increase in inequality.
According to The Harvard Crimson, Asian acceptance SAT scores averaged 767 (of 800), Whites at 745, Hispanics 718, Native Americans 712, while Blacks were at 704. Just under a 9% difference with a class size of about 1700, but applicant count at over 40,000. This will probably be ruled, eventually & correctly, as too much anti-Asian racist bias. I’d say about 2% max difference should be acceptable, so around 751 – already above the average admit rate of all other groups. That’s the reality, today.
[We should probably change College entrances to be more parental income based (over prior 5 years), so only 1% (17) can come from parents in the top 1%, only 10% (170) from parents in the top 10%, only 20% (340) from parents in the top 20%; and only 50% (850) from parents in the top 50%. This for schools with high endowments (over $100 million? Harvard has some $40 billion) and current reduced tax status. – such brainstorm ideas seldom make it into serious columns.]
Today racists like Kendi claim disparate impact proves racism, but only for Blacks against Whites and Asians. That stupid idea needs to be fought, strongly. Individual performance based merit causes average group difference.
Thus, the fact that Black players dominate the NBA is not racist, but performance based – Blacks on b-ball teams score more points/ win more games, than teams with more Hispanics or other less successful players.
I haven’t read Human Achievement, but your (2) points about Black musical culture seem very strong – tho it’s related to Black over-representation relative to Hispanics in selling music and being in movies. Yet I don’t remember “creative inferiority” of current Blacks being strongly attributed to Murray as reasons for rage, unlike group IQ differences.
As I read (and read & read), it’s like you can’t stop insulting and condemning Murray while eliding the key truths: a) there ARE IQ group avg differences, and b) Some of the difference IS genetic, thus unchangeable.
This Too Long comment’s conclusion was elevated to the top. To minimize racial gap differences, it’s most important for Blacks to change their own behavior – of which they are, themselves, the victims of the bad outcomes. 1) High School; 2) Marriage before babies; 3) No crime; 4) Hold a job for year.
How to get more Blacks to take these steps, as well as more Whites - that's most of the Work Glenn is talking about.
“a) there ARE IQ group avg differences, and b) Some of the difference IS genetic, thus unchangeable.”
And this is why Murray’s books are such garbage. People such as yourself come out of reading them thinking that from a) follows b), which is erroneous. All the data Murray presents in all of his books can be true, but it means nothing about whether genetics underlay disparities at all. In fact, all the data can be true and the black population can have genetics that theoretically could manifest in higher cognitive abilities than any other racial group -- given the right culture and environment. The fact that you are confident b follows from a or that b follows from the data Murray presents is evidence of your own racial bigotry. Or lack of cognitive ability. Perhaps it’s genetic. In which case it is futile you will ever understand your errors. An “intractable” problem as Murray calls it.
When I ask for a better than Bell Curve book on IQ, you fail to provide any link or reference, yet continue to insult Murray's books.
"All the data ... can be true, but it means nothing..." -- Horse manure.
Robinson is more clear: "this statement buries the fact that there are very important moral implications to the genetic question: the more the difference can be proven to be genetic in origin, the less responsible white people are for the disproportionate poverty affecting black communities. "
First there's the scientific truth, a known unknown, about the amount of IQ which is genetic versus Socio-Economic-Status (including parental relations). You claim, without evidence, genetics is essentially insignificant. (Too much argumentation on this issue, rather than current responsibility.)
Much more important is the question of how much white people, both living and dead, are responsible for today's black poverty (in the USA). There's no other country on earth where blacks have less absolute poverty, and are 10% or more of the population (as far as I know). The idea that living white people are responsible, today, for what dead white people did decades or centuries ago - this idea is totally against judging each person as an individual.
But it IS the basis of never-ending tribal warfare - which is what I see Democrats, today, trying to create.
With your help, Jeffrey. Despite your admirable honesty last year:
about the Democrat Party being the Party of Slavery, the Jim Crow Party, the KKK Party.
Blacks who decide to commit crimes, who decide to have sex before or outside of marriage (including "open marriages"), those blacks' choices create negative results in the communities where they live. Current poverty among Blacks today is maybe 5% IQ, but 50% crime, and 40% promiscuity (5% other). Because today's crime was influenced so much by the before birth promiscuity of the current criminal's parent, others might claim even higher % for promiscuity.
Today, AA is a little racist against Whites, and for colleges is quite racist against Asians, but in favor of less qualified Blacks. In theory, this reduces Black poverty.
[This assumption might actually be false, but that's a much longer rant.]
BAD BLACK behavior is the main reason - and "structural racism" is an excuse for what should be inexcusable behavior.
"When I ask for a better than Bell Curve book on IQ, you fail to provide any link or reference, yet continue to insult Murray's books."
A book that addresses IQ disparities between racial groups, and particular the disparities of black people, better than the Bell Curve is Thomas Sowell's Black Rednecks, White Liberals. And you can be comforted to know that Thomas Sowell doesn't insult Murray's book, albeit he does correct errors and disagree with aspects of it.
""All the data ... can be true, but it means nothing..." -- Horse manure."
No, that is just the limitations of correlational data. Assessing causation can be a complicated enterprise.
"First there's the scientific truth, a known unknown, about the amount of IQ which is genetic versus Socio-Economic-Status (including parental relations). You claim, without evidence, genetics is essentially insignificant. (Too much argumentation on this issue, rather than current responsibility.)"
No, I didn't claim genetics is essentially insignificant. I claimed that it *could be* entirely irrelevant. Not just insignificant; it could have no causal relevance to the group disparities in cognitive abilities. It could also be very significant. Theoretically. Genetics could be foundational in such a way that without a conscious breeding program, the disparities could be unchangeable. While it could be that a breeding program for blacks would be required, its also possible that a breeding program for whites would be required. The data is such that influence of environment and culture could be so dramatic that blacks as a group still have the genetics that underlie superior cognitive abilities to whites or any other racial group.
It could also be true that genetics underlie individual intelligence substantially but genetics doesn't underlie the disparities of cognitive abilities between racial groups. Proving that genetics underlies the foundation of individual intelligence does not prove that group disparities in cognitive abilities are genetic.
And while I didn't state anywhere to you that genetics are irrelevant; I do indeed actually suspect they are irrelevant. As for evidence that genetics is irrelevant when it comes to *group* disparities, I provided that in a different comment here to someone else. I'll copy and paste that here, just for convenience. And I will clarify my position now: I do suspect the foundation of intelligence is genetic on an individual level but I also suspect there is no genetic basis for disparities in cognitive abilities between racial groups.
This is largely paraphrased from Sowell. Among the best evidence against the genetic basis for the disparities in cognitive abilities between racial groups is that the average performance on cognitive tests has changed substantially for populations over time. And furthermore, particular ethnic groups have changed their relative position with regard to average performance on cognitive tests when intermarriage was relatively rare.
An example - when Jews took mental tests during WW1 -- American soldiers -- they scored extraordinarily low. However within a decade they were scoring above average. And now they are far above average.
IQ tests are normalized. And this conceals a continuing trend of people on average over time answering more questions correct on cognitive tests. A person can answer the same number of questions correct today as someone 2 decades ago but the former would have an IQ of 100 and the latter an IQ 85. The number of questions “blacks” answer correctly today is similar to the number of questions answered correctly by past generations of “whites”. Blacks today are not meaningfully more different genetically than whites today than whites a few generations ago. If blacks on average differ from whites in IQ today by 15 points but blacks also differ from blacks 2 generations prior by 15 points, and if those 15 points between generations of blacks are best explained by environment why wouldn’t environment explain the difference between blacks and whites today? Since it seems environment could be *sufficient* to explain *all* the difference, why would one not only propose that genetics could theoretically explain some of the difference (it could) but also have so much confidence that genetics explains so much of the difference that it would be futile to change the environment to improve disparities? I’ve got a reason: cuz the person is racist.
"The idea that living white people are responsible, today, for what dead white people did decades or centuries ago - this idea is totally against judging each person as an individual.
But it IS the basis of never-ending tribal warfare - which is what I see Democrats, today, trying to create.
With your help, Jeffrey. Despite your admirable honesty last year"
I absolutely don't think random white people today are responsible for what particular white people did in the past. Nor have I ever suggested that. You are welcome to quote me where I do. Judging Murray racist doesn't implicate all white people. Not all white people think it is futile to invest resources into attempting to remove disparities between racial groups because they think genetics make the disparities intractable. And some white people who do believe that aren't even racist, they are just ignorant. They may have just read the Bell Curve and didn't read anything like Black Rednecks and White Liberals. Now, if they don't attempt to explore contrary opinions, arguably they are indeed racist. And ignorant. Or I guess.. maybe just intellectually lazy.
"BAD BLACK behavior is the main reason - and "structural racism" is an excuse for what should be inexcusable behavior."
Yes, I agree the aggregate behavior of black people is the main reason for the continued disparities between black people and white people, just as the aggregate behavior of white people is the main reason for the continued disparities between white people and asian people. While historical racism can explain some of the disparities in wealth, and can even explain some of the cultural dysfunction of some black people, current racism as a significant causal explanation is erroneous. Black people today are not "structurally" or "systematically" oppressed, albeit, there are still some racists within the system who sometimes harm people who are black due to racism.
And I still think Charles Murray is a racist but that he should be able to safely speak at colleges.
"Blacks who decide to commit crimes, who decide to have sex before or outside of marriage (including "open marriages"), those blacks' choices create negative results in the communities where they live."
More black people can more frequently use condoms and other forms of birth control. That would be sufficient to adequately reduce children born outside relationships or to people not committed to raising children. People needn't abstain from sex until marriage. That largely explains lower frequency of unwanted pregnancies of other racial groups. Not abstinence. While I disparage indiscriminate sexual relationships, abstinence until marriage is a perverse and worthless norm.
I just read your other article, on Sam Harris. I don't think it is *as* compelling as the Charles Murray article, but it is still very informative and has mostly good arguments.
It though is riddled with what appears to me pious tribal references to things like "Mansplaining", which is sexist. I've observed that people of a particular political tribe, who often find themselves in the Church of the Awoken, have the tendency to find the bigotry of "minorities" (which irrationally includes women), to be acceptable or even noble. Thus, the same people who think "mansplaining" isn't sexist are more likely to believe black people cannot be racist. I suspect, based on the way you wrote of "feminism" you don't hold people of particular groups to the same rigorous standards of morality or reason that you hold Charles Murray or Mr. Reasonable. That you refer to Mr. Kendi, aka Mr Ministry of [Racist] Anti-Racism, as support in an essay about the statist and totalitarian fantasies of Sam Harris is... quaint.
I'll point out one thing I found to be erroneous.
"Sam Harris constantly deploys insults (“preening,” “delusional,” “unscrupulous”), and as Dan Jones notes, his “style of argument is more about beating people down than engaging in any sort of dialogue that would help him, and others, get straight on deep, complex issues.”
Insults, like calling Charles Murray odious? I could not gather from your article whether you thought him using insults simply watered down his self-image of being Mr Reasonable, or whether you were proposing that insults undermined a person's arguments entirely. I don't think they necessarily do. Insults are *sometimes* just the "rational" outcome of what we believe and feel about people, and they aren't necessarily part of an argument. Charles Murray being odious is not an argument for why his ideas are garbage, but a judgement in response to his ideas and sentiments being garbage, which you do a good job of explaining why you think they are.
So, when Sam Harris says that "feminist epistemology" is crazy, it could just as well be a conclusion, and not a premise. Do you personally think no philosophical ideas are crazy? I doubt that. If you do, I imagine you haven't read much philosophy. I find that highly unlikely though given the breadth of your criticisms of Harris. Which means, your opposition toward Harris calling feminist epistemology crazy may be driven mostly by your attachment to your tribe. I don't know what version of feminist epistemology Sam or you are referring to, but if it supports the pseudo-popular the mind-twisting notion that "transwomen are women", it is definitely crazy. What say you? Are "transwomen" women?
So I will guess your answer to my question is yes, "transwomen" are women. Its okay, you are probably just "displaying the exact intellectual blind spots so typical among men."
I would be delighted to have a conversation with you about trans philosophy and "have a dialogue that would help" you "and others, get straight on deep, complex issues."
Given Nathan's status as a devout follower of the Church of Trans, it's not really that surprising that he would believe that men can be women. But if he's seriously interested in trying to show the rest of the world how to be rationale and to recognize flaws in their arguments, he really needs to take some time to re-examine his nonsensical religious beliefs and drop the science-denying pontificating that he's picked up from the Trans Cult.
Nathan wrote: 'If people become convinced that trans women do not belong in women’s sports, it reinforces the idea that trans women are not "really" women.'
Charles Murray is a racist just as certainly as Lia Thomas is a woman. I think we can all agree on that!
Lia Thomas is not a woman. Biological sex is real and it is not true that everyone who says "I am a woman" is a woman. I totally agree with Jeffrey Peoples - the notion that "transwomen are women" is mind-twisting and has absolutely nothing in common with science. The biological differences between male and female bodies are real and have real consequences.
I read the first article you linked to and will admit that while I own a copy of The Bell Curve, I haven't read it cover to cover but rather have only read sections of it and also don't have my copy with me at hand, so am operating a bit in the dark as it's been years since I last opened up the book.
Where I do agree with you is that Murray is a bit too naive in his assertion that racial differences if proven to be partly genetic should have no impact in terms of how we think about and treat our fellow human beings. Glenn has also pointed out that these kinds of racial hypotheses carry strong sociological, moral and emotional implications. This is not just another empirical assertion. I tend to excuse Murray somewhat on this matter because I've found that high IQ academic types aren't always the most in touch with the larger part of humanity.
It's understandable why many people would be offended by such an emotionally charged thesis, but that doesn't mean Murray is wrong about the facts or even that his moral framework is lacking. You don't seem to believe that Murray should be censored, which I definitely appreciate. You also don't seem to deny the possibility that racial differences could in theory be partly genetic in origin, but from your first article seem angry that Murray would express agnosticism towards the extent to which such differences are environmental versus genetic without a full accounting of the history of racism in American society towards Blacks. Such an accounting would presumably incline any decent human being towards a primarily environmental explanation for the present-day racial gaps observed in this country. You also express anger at the perceived implications of what a genetic explanation of group differences would entail, i.e., that whites would essentially be let off the hook for their historical oppression of Blacks in America.
This is the quandary that people like myself find themselves in. I'm open to the possibility that racial differences have a partly genetic basis but also don't really care to think about the matter 24/7. I'd much rather just live and let live, in the same sense that I enjoy watching the NFL without really pondering too much why ~99% of cornerbacks in the league are Black for instance. But as Glenn eloquently pointed out in his conversation with Sam, part of the reason why some people focus on the topic of group differences more than they otherwise might is that the other side operates under a blanket assumption that biological differences of any kind are basically inconceivable and that any disparity in outcomes among races is ipso facto proof of systemic racism. I find this kind of thinking to be a stretch.
I agree that the sociological and moral implications of the nature/nurture debate are particularly thorny but feel like the topic of race has muddied these issues quite a bit. I’m assuming that you’re more okay with Murray’s thesis where it touches not upon race but upon individuals, but don’t want to misrepresent your views. If we take a step back from the vexed matter of race, I find it hard to believe that any reasonable person could argue that at least among individuals there aren’t meaningful differences in intelligence and motivation and that these traits aren’t correlated with tangible real-life outcomes. You seem annoyed by Murray’s embrace of the notion of the natural aristocracy and its paternalistic view that everyone has their station in life, but I wonder if a more enlightened and realistic attitude towards individual differences in fact doesn’t make society better off.
One of the things that many people have argued against in this country is the sort of Yale or jail mindset whereby it’s assumed that everyone needs to go to a 4-year college and aspire to be a superstar in life. In my opinion a lot of that kind of thinking is motivated by left-wing Blank Slate egalitarian views that argue that anyone can basically become anything under the right circumstances. But feel free to point out that I'm just peddling a caricature here. From what I’ve read they do a much better job emphasizing vocational training in countries like Germany and Japan. Is this precisely not the kind of enlightened social policy that would be more likely to be implemented under the operational and moral framework espoused by someone like Charles Murray? I personally found his book Real Education to be particularly informative.
My main impression is that you don’t so much disagree with Murray as a matter of empirical fact, although as I stated above you clearly believe he ignores a vast amount of racial history when he expresses agnosticism towards the extent to which group differences are rooted in biology as opposed to environment. Rather I get the feeling that you’re mostly angry about the sorts of value judgments Murray makes when for instance he valorizes IQ and intelligence in a particular rhetorical way or when he passes judgment on matters of artistic or musical merit.
I can sympathize in part with where you're coming from but don’t believe that these sorts of value judgments make Charles Murray a racist. At worst some of his views are a bit parochial and reveal a bias for the particular milieu that he grew up in. But I'm no more offended by Murray's opinions on art than I would be by someone who felt that Japanese anime was the epitome of artistic excellence. To each his own.
I truly believe deep down that Murray harbors no malice towards any particular ethnic group, which quite frankly I wouldn't say about other individuals who might be described as being part of the alt-right. And that I would argue is what constitutes the essence of racism.
“Murray would express agnosticism towards the extent to which such differences are environmental versus genetic without a full accounting of the history of racism in American society towards Blacks. “
Yet this is not true. Murray is not agnostic about it. He has confidence that genetics underlie the differences. He expresses this clearly in the interview with Coleman Hughes. He suspects the disparities are due to genetics to such an extent that he believes it would be futile for any social efforts to end those disparities.
He downplays that faith of his. Glenn Loury shouldn’t.
I concur. I read your article on current affairs. It is much better and more interesting scholarship than the Bell Curve.
And it is obnoxious that those who praise Charles Murray and insist that he isn’t racist have discussed Charles Murray with Charles Murray but have never to my knowledge discussed Charles Murray with any articulate critic of Charles Murray. How about Glenn brings on you, Nathan Robinson, to his show to discuss Charles Murray and his ideas?
Even though I am a subscriber for 7 bucks a month I am seemingly unable to access the full lenght version of this podcast episode/Youtube video even though I am logged in here. Any ideas?
At the beginning of the podcast, Sam notes that he mostly agrees with you, Glenn, about Affirmative Action and the position of Blacks in US society.
You come back with the idea that he should "think for himself".
Sam is being more realistic - nobody can become an expert on everything. Everybody ends up choosing WHO to believe, more than deciding for themselves WHAT to believe. Listeners & readers who don't write comments even more so - and those who have too much life to spend much time on the internet at all even more so.
Tribal beliefs are important for normal folk to reduce their own cognitive load. We sort of get to choose our intellectual leaders, mostly, but once chosen it's mostly accepting what those leaders say and see how it solves your own problems.
A few of us, and only a few, are able to rationally criticize the leaders in our own tribe. You are one of the few, and like Sam, I start with the assumption that you're right.
Except ... a week or two ago when John said "Trump is an idiot", and you replied "Trump is an idiot." Do you really believe that Trump is a bigger idiot than Biden? What was Trump's bad policy?
Worse than Biden's reducing US oil production (sending prices higher, and more cash to Russia)? Worse than running away from Afghanistan, with essentially no plan after trashing the plan Trump's guys were drawing up?
Worse than inflation causing $1.3 trillion extra stimulus cash?
Worse than Biden telling Putin it would be OK for Russia to have a small incursion into Ukraine?
Really, John still criticizes Trump, like his famous NY Times employer seems to require - but you don't have to fully accept evidence free insults, nor agree with them if you don't. If you do, you should give an example, like:
Obama is a liar - "you can keep your doctor".
Or Bush 41 "Read my Lips".
But in general, normal folk look for believable, mostly honest folk, that they can believe in. Then they do believe in those folks.
Hi Glenn, off subject but may I suggest you and/or Sam Harris invite Stephen Meyer regarding his book "The Return of the God Hypothesis". He is very enlightening regarding the divide between science and God.
You are so right to defend Murray, or anybody's, right to ask the question. How much is genetics? How much is nurture/ culture/ living conditions/ everything else.
50:50? 40: 60? 80:20? Anti-science haters of Murray who insisted on 0% genetics are increasingly being proved wrong.
But we can't do anything about genetics, yet we can maybe affect and improve each child's situation. Maybe. Because spending gov't and charity money on poor people seems to have been tried, and failed to work on many.
One idea that's terrible, tho Murray might endorse it somewhat, is Universal Basic Income (UBI). Paying to be lazy is terrible - see Mississippi and response to the Covid stimulus. Instead we need a Job Guaranty of State, National, or Country service, to hire everybody, which hasn't seriously been tried. It's based on the theory that most poor folk need to earn self-respect, which can't be given, but must be earned.
There might be other programs to reward other good behavior, like getting married, or being single without kids or pregnancy.
I wish there were some policy ideas you were thinking should be tried - we should all be humble enough to admit none know what "will work". But some policies will work better than others.
Glenn, it would be good to be more clear about what "racism" can mean:
1) The races are different in some way. Visibly.
2) Some races are superior, others are inferior.
a) in IQ - intelligence, cognitive ability, getting to the "right answer" thru logic
b) in physical measures, like height, weight, breast or penis size, hair color, or eye color, or
amount of melanin in their skin.
3) That, based on racial differences, they can be treated differently as members of a group, irrespective of individual differences.
(Jeffrey Peoples is also a target of this comment - what does "racism" mean to him).
Race is real, and visible by normal eyesight, as well as increasingly by genetic analysis.
(3) treating individuals differently because of race is already illegal, discrimination is illegal - yet different races exhibit different outcomes.
The problem of different outcomes doesn't seem so large in the NBA. Even tho there are more Hispanics in America than Blacks, there are far far fewer Hispanics than Blacks playing professional basketball. Is that racism? Culture/ nurture? Genetics? Is it so bad that the rules need to be changed?
Blacks are, as a group, taller. Genetically. Culturally Blacks play more basketball, younger, than do Hispanics, who play more soccer (football to the rest of the world).
Trying to imagine rules to allow more "equity" in the NBA between Blacks and Hispanics would essentially destroy the main meritocracy criteria of "most winning (w/o cheating)".
Here are some bad possible equality rules: - Hispanics should score as many points, so they get 10, 20, & 30 points for their shots, not just 1, 2, & 3.
- Each team needs as many Hispanics as Blacks
- Each team needs to have Hispanics play as many minutes as Blacks play
- The total amount of money paid to Hispanics must be at least as much as paid to Blacks
... all of these equality rules destroy the game.
This is similar to ending sexism by comparing XY males and XX females and trying for equality.
XY people ARE genetically different than XX people - and real men are XY people who identify as men; real women are XX people who identify as women. We don't have language for XY people who do NOT identify as men, and "mentally ill" has been rejected, altho it might be true. (I'd suggest ‘quasi-women’ for such an XY person as Lia Thomas, because q'she is not a real woman. Q'her winning in women's swimming is not fair. Q’she is not a real woman, but q’she is a q’woman. Elliot Page is a q’man, since q’he transitioned in 2021.)
On math ability (math IQ), there's a good Putnam exam. Last year MIT won all of the 5 top spots, with East Asian men, as well as the top woman (in top 15, not even top 10).
https://news.mit.edu/2022/mit-students-take-first-place-82nd-putnam-mathematical-competition-0311 (see picture)
No Blacks, no Whites. It might be that there have been 0 blacks as any of the top 5 since this competition started 82 years ago - it's certainly the case that fewer than 10%, and even less than 1% of the winners have been Black. Far far less than 50% or even 10% have been women (Larry Summers was totally correct about few top female physicists - but he was still pushed out of Harvard for speaking this truth.)
MIT abolished SAT scores last year - this year they are re-instating them.
To be the top in just about anything requires genetics (talent?) AND cultural nurture AND individual effort.
Murray-haters implicitly or explicitly say that genetics have 0% influence. This is certainly false, based on all we know about genetics today, but we even knew that then. For group IQ, how much is genetics versus everything else is much less clear. 50%? 33%?
Why did Glenn Loury or John McWhorter succeed? Genetically gifted, some level of culture- nurture, and individual effort. (Same reasons I'm good but not nearly as great).
We who want Blacks to do better in America, and the world, should be agreeing that culture is important, and improvable. Poor Blacks, like poor Whites, and like all poor dumb people (like Forrest Gump), need to follow 4 main rules of behavior - behavior that is under their control, despite other influences:
1) Finish High School (or GED); 2) no babies until marriage; 3) no criminal behavior; 4) keep a job for at least a year.
Poor Whites, like poor Hispanics, have almost always violated one or more of these clear social rules. Also poor Blacks - but in even greater percentages.
Talk about IQ distracts from the far more important issue of behavior. Like Will Smith's criminal small assault because of a verbal insult against his open-marriage wife. Even if low IQ is part of the reason that poor people are bad at following these rules, the key social issue should be in helping more poor people follow these rules more often.
"...the key social issue should be in helping more poor people..."
I think that gets steamrolled by the key political issues, the key mercantile concerns, the key NEA/university concerns. The concerns of the huge Woke, Inc., industry.
You attacked the matter from a very logical perspective. That's the way I look at things, too. However, too many people benefit personally from keep the waters muddy. If there is no agreed upon definition of "racism," all the better to them.
To Sam's argument that we should consciously blind ourselves to group differences (if they exist) in mental facilities: While well intentioned, that is a foolish and futile position. Does Sam believe that the Chinese are not going to investigate the genetic determinates of intelligence, unconstrained by his racial sensitivities? That seems about as likely to me as the snowball's chance of escaping hell. And are science and policy going to be in a better place if the Chinese are the thought leaders who have mastered the science? I think not. Willful ignorance is not going to be helpful. Let's try to understand reality, not hide from it. That ain't going to work.
The Cheerland-Watson Center in Shenzhen perhaps answers the first question. A 180-acre state-of-the-art research facility in China -- named after the Nobel prize-winning American who was cancelled in his own country.
Meanwhile, here in the good ol' USA, we're woke-splainin' how a man can jump into a swimming pool and magically transform into a woman.
Still haven't had time to watch video. My loss.
Just sticking head in here from seeing Rob Montz's “Harvard Canceled Its Best Black Professor. Why?” This is about Roland Fryer, who I'd always heard good things about, and the ruthless end to his career.
Can't rate You high enough, Professor Loury! If You happen across this, bow and kiss Your feet!
Anybody belonging to Common Sense should check it out. Actually, it's be worth one month's subscription to watch the 25 min. documentary.
I think I can get to where Sam is aiming. No one collects data on how many blondes get into Harvard, or Bronx Science, etc. I'd like race, creed and gender differences to be just as irrelevant. But right now there is an entire government, academic, and business "industrial complex" that collects, interprets, and takes remedial action based on this data. I'm sure they are not prepared to give up their livelihoods. Entire business models are based on manipulation of this data. Would that it were not so, but Sam will have to wait a bit for his wish.
Let me first say that I admire Sam Harris and subscribe to his podcast. I share his desire to live in a world in which skin color is as incidental as hair color. However, I was surprised by his question about why we should investigate group level academic performance. Glenn’s answer to this was perfect. As long as the wokes allege racism to be the cause of disparities, then we will need to gather facts and data to prove that racism is not the cause of the disparities. Murray’s “Facing Reality” was the inevitable response to false accusations about racism’s role in our society, regardless of how sad it was to read that book. Harris is way too smart and thoughtful to not know this.
Glenn, I believe you got the better of Sam on this question. Your vigorous defense of intellectual curiosity and the need for it in academia and elsewhere was as articulate and cogent as any I’ve ever read. And I believe Harris’s rather weak response that perhaps there are some subjects so fraught or disquieting that we should simply ignore them and compel others to do so too is intellectually dishonest or at least very weak. Keep up the good work!
Respect both these men greatly. Sam especially because he dared to interview Charles Murray. I’ve listened to Glenn a lot more, and especially enjoyed his talks with John McWhorter. I have to say, while Sam’s argument about race should be regarded like hair color would be neat, it isn’t and part of why it isn’t is that there are all kinds of movements and agendas going on to bring about “equity” for non-whites, so we cannot just not pay attention. We need to figure out how to bring about the non-interest Sam wishes for. I can’t say I know a lot about why or how IQ develops as it does, but I have to think that Asians studying 365 days a year bodes well for them, while whites studying only 2/3rd of that time may not end up as intelligent, and that is only ONE factor out of many many factors. How much do whites dumb themselves down with drugs or alcohol for example? How would an IQ test done on men using only feminine questions turn out? Ditto, women tested on predominantly male subjects? True, it is not how we use IQ testing, but I think I’m making a useful point here. I don’t think we are all truly blank slates to start with and how we live has impact on our ultimate intelligence.
I had a similar reaction to Sam's hair color analogy. It's not really "we" as a society who make that call. It's the blondes. And I suspect if blondes voted 95 percent for one political party, there'd be 500 political action committees with the word "blonde" in them.
P.S. To bring about the non-interest that Sam wishes for, we ought to stop using quotas in employment and university applications and make these things merit-based. If I’m a business, I want the most qualified person doing the work I need someone to do and I don’t care about anything else and I set the standard for those qualifications. If I’m a dean at a university I want the smartest and brightest in my school. Those who don’t make the grade should go to lesser schools until they can meet the grade. I am sure this sounds just horrible, but please know I am very empathetic and want all people to succeed, so please read on. It comes down to economics, always! A difficulty with the university example is that schools are publicly funded and THAT is why the dean cannot just accept the brightest and smartest and most able students. As a society comprising all colors, races, creeds, religions, both sexes, blonds and brunettes and red heads, curly and straight hair, and whatever other categories, it behooves us to understand our capabilities and differences and to do all we can to be a “rising tide lifting all boats.” Can’t do that by pretending differences do not exist. Example: More women for time out of mind played little girl games as children than those who didn’t. So. Work with it. Not against it. Maybe they make the best doctors, if we can help them through the maths they need to know that have proved easier for men to learn than women.
Sorry if too long. TYTY both-a YOUSE. Hope to listen to podcast today, mebbe.
SH: He I perceived in hindsight to be a kind of canary in the coal mine.
Sh: But I viewed it as morally important to do,
GL: That's a question of cause and effect, and so on. And what manner of society will we have become if not only asking the question is forbidden but defending the asking of the question is forbidden?
GL: *** You know-nothing, anti-intellectual thugs. I mean, the people who want to shut up a discussion about this question and who want to make it a sign of your decency and your legitimacy for membership in society to castigate and ostracize Charles Murray, which I am not going to do, those people are a threat to civilization, in my opinion. ***
SH: So we just simply don’t have the data on how many blondes got into Harvard last year. And nor would anyone think to have that data. We don’t want the data, nobody cares. How do we get there with respect to skin color and religion and anything else? That’s where I think I would want to be. The path open to us there is to cease to pay attention to these variables.
"Coming Apart" was also mentioned on M. DeBoer's Substack. But MAY attempt them in chronological order, IF at all. Hoping to.
As I posted before, genetics and effect on intelligence most definitely SHOULD be investigated. I don't think CRISPR should have been investigated without some group reviewing what the long-range effects of Super-Intelligence MIGHT be. Made up of, mostly, non-PhDs, IMHO. Given, human beings don't even have the mental capacity to fully understand what Super-Intelligence would actually turn out to BE.
My former mentor was BIG fan of Transhumanism but feared Super-Intelligence. THis is logically untenable. You can SAY Transhumanism is all about extending human longevity. Weeeel then.. It has the nasty SIDE-EFFECT of being path to Super-Intelligence. I've only seen the question raised once, by a non-scientists, and never seen it answered ANYWHERE. What WILL happen when some-a the population gains Super-Intelligence and the rest-a us slaves don't? Or the slaves get a lower-order form of AI or super-genes or whatever it turns out to be?
What Musk is doing at Neuralink? Should NOT be investigated until the issue of Super-Intelligence is at least LOOKED at. It progresses same as CRISPR. "It's for MEDICAL PURPOSES! SAVE people!!" Yeah, but right there on the website they answer the question if technique will be used for non-medical purposes. Just as You would KNOW it would happen. Answer: Yup, we envision it probably would be.
On the other side-a the balance scale, former-mentor says what Russia and China are CURRENTLY doing in the way of Transhumanism is horrific. Dunno. He never said and I didn't press. Should-a. But can imagine it'd be the worst. Well, actually can't imagine anything at ALL about it.
Me? Let NATO consortium do that work on AI and Transhumanism. Radical? Super-Intelligence radical DEPARTURE. Basically creating a new species of Homo s. if looked at in a certain Way. Let other countries police any country that's wants to rule the world with Super-Intelligence and Transhumanism in general.
That's just me.
Write by intuition. ALWAYS mistakes. Sheesh.
"SH: So we just simply don’t have the data on how many blondes got into Harvard last year. And nor would anyone think to have that data. We don’t want the data, nobody cares. How do we get there with respect to skin color and religion and anything else? That’s where I think I would want to be. The path open to us there is to cease to pay attention to these variables."
I'm totally, completely, and ABSOLUTELY SIMPATICO with SH's view of race. Same as mine, basically. Part-raised by Black man I worked for in formative years. Long story.
Difference being that blonde's culture/experience aren't in any way SIMILAR to Black's culture/experience. Me? Aggregate data should be kept on Blacks. And mebbe blondes too. That seem far-fetched to me, but who knows.
I think if we did not know what we don’t know, then you could argue that ignorance is bliss, but when we DO know what we don’t know, I would say it’s better to try to find the answers. If there are no questions asked because we don’t know that we don’t know, it’s fine. The trouble is that when we there are questions but no answers, people try to answer with lies.
This is all to say I believe knowledge is power and the truth will always prevail, eventually. The questions are better answered than unanswered, and even if the lies are believed now, future generations will look back and see the truth, but only if we answer those questions. The problem with certain people now is that facts are irrelevant to them but again, if we don’t seek answers to questions we will allow those people to write the answers with their lies. So I would say that there is nothing that is better not known
I am with Sam Harris when he wonders just why Charles Murray wrote his latest book. Murray himself took pains during the interview with Glenn Loury to say that the disparities he found between the races were most evident in the middle, and not so much on the extreme ends. Okay, so what does that really mean? But he is not going to comment on what it all means, he is just giving us the data. Come on. Conservative writer Wilfred Reilly has written about the i.q. scores of ethnic groups around the world, which highlights that many European populations have i.q. scores very close to African Americans, and also how average i.q. scores for African Americans and other groups have changed/increased pretty dramatically over the years, which points strongly towards environmental rather than genetic factors being most important. Reilly's points need to be explored in any discussion about ethnicity and i.q. Why not ask Murray about that? I read Murray's book Coming Apart, and thought he had a lot of good info and insights, but he also struck me as having an agenda, and being rather obsessed with the purchasing habits of upper middle class professionals, blaming them for every ill besetting less educated, less wealthy white Americans, whose economic plight he otherwise described very eloquently through his statistics and research. Murray deserves to be treated respectfully, he has a right to speak his mind, and present his research, but I don't think he deserves special treatment either. His research should be open to critique, like any other scholar.
"His research should be open to critique, like any other scholar." If there is any scholar that has been critiqued, I think Charles Murray would be it, or at least very near the top of the list.
Also, I was listening to the Charles Murray, Sam Harris podcast, and they specifically mentioned that of course environment can be a factor. But that doesn't mean genetics isn't also a factor. Their comparison to height I think was very apt.
If a person is malnourished they might not grow as tall. But that doesn't mean height doesn't have a strong genetic component. Same certainly applies to IQ.
Yes, I see the genetics-environmental interaction. I am not an expert, but from what I have read, intelligence, as recorded by I Q tests may be more malleable than, say, height. However it is, there is a good argument for enriching the environment of children as much as possible.
Charles Murray isn’t deplatformed. He has been pushed off the stage a few times. Regardless of that, his voice is widely available, his writings are on lots of bookshelves, including libraries. It is unfortunate that there are people out there who would try to use forms of force or coercion to prevent Murray from being on a stage that voluntarily requests him, and I find those people contemptible. But, alas Glenn, I find Murray contemptible as well. The fact that he has written some books that has had some political influence doesn’t make him less contemptible in my mind. Not having read the Bell Curve and some of Human Achievement would not have impoverished my mind. Not having read his other books likely hasn’t impoverished my mind either.
I commend you, Sam Harris, and Coleman Hughes for engaging with him. I think even contemptible people, if they have some popular appeal, should be wrestled with in debate and discussion rather than censored by good and reasonable people. But I am bewildered that you and John view him with such reverence and affection.
From every interview I have watched with him, he has demonstrated a faith in the notion that black people as a group are “dumb” (his word in the Bell Curve for people on the low end), and the reason for them being dumb is genetic. Murray confidently believes that the iq disparities among racial groups are due to genetic variations in racial groups, yet such confidence can only be had with the faith of a bigot.
It is*possible* such correlations and disparities are genetically grounded, but it’s also possible that they can be explained by culture. The confidence he expresses in interviews about the genetic causation is not rationally justified. And I would argue that the cultural explanation has better evidence. Despite 200+ years of brutal oppression and destruction of black Americans and their capacity to develop as individuals and communities, the theory he has faith in is that the limitations black people now face are genetically bounded. Anyone who thinks that 60 years of the Party of Slavery parasitically feeding off black victimhood, resentment, and insecurity by sabotaging their efforts to succeed with faux reparations, counter productive affirmative action, and political patronage counts as any semblance of an experiment to offset 200 years of brutality that just might affect disparities in cognitive abilities probably has deep seated bigotries about black people, aka racism, at least when no one is looking.
The cause of such disparities is extremely important when it comes to how we approach those disparities from a societal perspective. If we have the faith of racial bigots such as Murray that those disparities are genetic, putting in resources to change the cultural practices of black people as a group would a futile enterprise. Which is why Murray’s attitude appears to be that society must come to just accept the disparities: they won’t change. On the other hand, if you have the much more reasonable faith that disparities are due to culture, putting in resources the right way could have dramatic impact on those disparities.
The right way, btw, is not how the Democratic Party and BLM loyalists are currently proposing cultural change: e.g. declaring that the pursuit intellectual achievement is “whiteness” and lowering standards for black people.
And speaking of platforms, I’d really like a platform. Rather than defending bigots like Murray and expanding his platform, how about using your platform to help others, such as my glorious and humble self, to get theirs. It saddens me that my essay is still lingering in darkness while illustrious people such as yourself sweat about Charles Murray not being able to spread his idea that black people as a group are doomed to have a lower iq forever because of their genetics.
My essay, just in case you actually read this comment:
https://minorityreport.substack.com/p/accepting-the-obvious?s=r
I'll probably be excoriated for expressing agnosticism on the matter of nature versus nurture vis-à-vis racial differences but for what it’s worth I personally found the phenomenon of Black excellence in competitive Scrabble to be an interesting and relevant datapoint for the cultural side of the debate.
https://glennloury.substack.com/p/february-q-and-a-part-1/comment/5335113?s=r
Excoriated for agnosticism? Not by me. But I implore you to investigate more sources that support a cultural explanation. It is the righteous faith, but people should arrive there only after they have investigated it for themselves.
Have you read Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell? Id recommend that as an introduction.
Yeah I have that book on my bookshelf and a couple of others by Sowell, but haven't read most of his most popular works since he's been such a prolific writer. Personally I found the Scrabble data point I linked to above to be more convincing evidence of the cultural thesis than some of the arguments offered by Sowell, but I'll admit that I haven't read enough of Sowell to be informed.
Have you actually read the book on your shelf, or just have it there?
And I read your comment about Nigerian Scrabble players. Definitely a fascinating data point; dunno if it outweighs the many data points, for example, in Black Rednecks, but certainly deserves a glorious place alongside them. I appreciate that you linked to it.
I think this is an outstanding comment and I look forward to reading your longer essay. It seems to me that the key point that causes upset with Murray is a nature vs nurture question where he seems to suggest that black people as a whole are genetically inferior or perhaps so disadvantaged that it's more or less the same thing. Glenn and Sam do not seem to take him to task on this very important point. When Murray was on the Glenn show to discuss the last book (which I have not read), Murray went out of his way to say that he was just presenting the data but that drawing conclusions is too controversial. My sense is that he did something similar in the Bell Curve. That is terribly weak and anyone giving him a platform (Glenn in this case) should clearly force this issue. That's what platforms like this are for.
I'm not sure that I think he should be canceled (and it seems like a partial cancellation in the sense that he's been making his way as a prominent public intellectual for decades despite publishing books about racial inferiority). But, let's not pretend to be surprised about why people are very upset about him.
This seems like a blind spot. Glenn and John get outraged about fuzzy logic, obfuscation and weak argumentation on the left. I'm on board for that. But, it is of great importance to maintain this level of rigor when dealing with your own side and your own friends. If you put the boots to Kendi and Hannah-Jones, you should do the same for Murray. With all the ruckus here over woke topics, it's frustrating to see Murray get a free (or close to free) pass from Glenn on his project of implied eugenics.
If I'm missing something here, or am lost in my own blind spot, please let me know.
“With all the ruckus here over woke topics, it's frustrating to see Murray get a free (or close to free) pass from Glenn on his project of implied eugenics.”
If Murray’s faith is true, the only way black people as a group can significantly improve cognitive abilities as demonstrated by iq scores and STEM employment is through a breeding program.
I don’t think anyone could come to such a faith without a large rock of bigotry lodged in their soul.
Glenn and John do seem to be blind to that spot. If they are truly Murray’s friend though, they should not allow their affection to blind them, and be willing to see faults and flaws, and then point out that spot. It is repulsive.
Faith has nothing to do with this. Look at the data, if the data changes, then update your views.
Right now, the data strongly suggest there are population level differences.
That shouldn't tell us anything about how we treat each other. But it might offer some other explanations on why the trillions we've spent on poverty reduction don't seem to do much
“Population level genetic differences” is an irrelevant observation. If you take a population that has blue eyes and a population that has brown eyes, those populations are going to have genetic differences. You are inferring incorrectly what faith I’m referring to.
When we allow others to decide what information is allowed to be propagated, we don't learn the lessons of Nanjing or My Lai. We don't discover root causes and develop effective perspectives or solutions. It is a voluntary mental handicap to accept limitations on what can be known.
"You cannot understand the public debate about race and intelligence if you don’t read The Bell Curve. Attempts to make Murray persona non grata, to paint him as a racist and a hollow ideologue, simply don’t hold water. Attempts to deplatform him and hound him out of the public sphere are even worse."
One of these three points is not like the others. The first point—The Bell Curve should be read—is right. It is consequential so it should be read, just as the writings of John C. Calhoun should be read. The third point, deplatforming is bad, also true. But the second point, that "attempts to paint him as a racist and a hollow ideologue simply don't hold water" dismisses the SUBSTANCE of the critics' case against Murray without actually engaging our arguments. Why do the criticisms not hold water? I wrote a careful essay explaining why I believe it is accurate to call Murray racist: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/why-is-charles-murray-odious
Murray saw it, did not respond to the arguments, and just commented "I guess I'm odious." I object to the way that defenses of Murray's right to be heard and to have his arguments evaluated often turn into a substantive defense of his ideas as being valuable and his scholarship as being good. The fact that he shouldn't have been chased out of Middlebury College does not mean that he is not a racist or that the Bell Curve is not a shoddy piece of work. Harris says "I don't think he's a racist." But he seems unfamiliar with the arguments critics make to show Murray is racist. (I have also extensively critiqued Harris' shoddy reasoning, including his failure to grasp the critiques of Murray's work and challenge Murray on them. Harris didn't respond either. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/10/being-mr-reasonable )
Why the anger against Murray? “The fact that he shouldn't have been chased out of Middlebury College does not mean that he is not a racist or that the Bell Curve is not a shoddy piece of work.” The Murray-haters were wrong to chase him off Middlebury’s platform. If you can’t refer to a better work on IQ than The Bell Curve, your “shoddy piece” insult starts to apply even more strongly to your own 2017 piece. Where is such neutral scholarship? Rage without a better alternative is self-defeating.
I’m enraged against Murray-haters, because today it is claimed by many that Black failures are due to White structural racism. Blacks fail, and it’s MY fault (since I’m white). This is false, and enraging. Those that fail do so because they fail at one or more of the clear 4 steps to take out of poverty:
1) graduate from High School (knowing how to read, write, and do some math);
2) have no babies before marriage;
3) stay out of jail, commit no crimes;
4) get some job and keep it for a year or more.
Whites who are poor are poor for failing at one or more of these – ain’t ‘cause ‘a no racism. But Blacks who are poor when failing to do these steps? Oh yeah, THAT’s racism, structural racism.
So every time Black kids play basketball instead of studying for school, or even going to school to graduate from High School, I’m guilty. Blacks having sex before and outside of marriage and having babies (with fathers not there; some 75% of Black kids) – my guilt. Guilt but no orgasm. Blacks commit crimes, like killing other gang members or bystanders – clearly it’s White folks’ fault. Blacks refuse to stay in some BS job, or something where you have show up on time, or not drugged out nor drunk – Witey’s fault. Eddie Murphy explained it decades ago: “I hate Whitey because he’s white: W – I – T – E”.
Bullshit. 90% or more of US poverty is based on individual failure to follow the 4 steps out of poverty. The sad reality is too few Blacks choose, due to IQ, culture, parents, school, gov’t programs, too few Blacks choose to follow the steps out of poverty. But society talks about racism, talks about racism, and talks about who is a racist and why.
[The above was my conclusion, the rest discusses your article in more detail.]
Your piece claims Murray IS a racist, as in para 4:
“For it can be very easily proven that Murray is a man with a strong racial bias against Black people, insofar as he fails to respect them as equal human beings and believes them to be, on average, inferior to white people in matters of intelligence, creativity, and inherent human worth... if Murray is not a racist, the word “racist” is empty of meaning.”
You use the same Murray-hate (Murray Derangement Syndrome?) argumentation that you claim so many other haters do when you “stretch the case against him beyond its limits”. Belief in lower group average intelligence does NOT mean lower inherent human worth.
But it’s very very true that economic success is often equated with moral superiority, and IQ or other “smarts” is expected to lead one to become rich. “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” (Stanford unofficial sweatshirt motto.)
Murray’s ACTUAL appearance on The Glenn Show shows him as quite respectful of Glenn, treating him fully as an equal human being. Which is possible for those who believe in the Jeffersonian ideal that all people are created equal in the eyes of God and should be treated and judged as individuals based on their own behavior and characteristics, as MLK dreamt. The importance of this is that individual treatment is the only realistic way to behave to others if Blacks are, on average, inferior to Whites, Hispanics, and Asians in the matter of IQ / g – intelligence / SATscores.
Your claims about what Murray writes:
“1- Black people tend to be dumber than white people, which is probably partly why white people tend to have more money than black people. This is likely to be partly because of genetics, a question that would be valid and useful to investigate.
2- Black cultural achievements are almost negligible. Western peoples have a superior tendency toward creating “objectively” more “excellent” art and music. Differences in cultural excellence across groups might also have biological roots.
3- We should return to the conception of equality held by the Founding Fathers, who thought black people were subhumans. A situation in which white people are politically and economically dominant over black people is natural and acceptable.
On #3, you never show that Murray wants a conception of equality where black people are subhuman. You show he likes the limited government of the early USA, and its ideals. YOU, Nathan, are adding the part about Blacks as subhuman, and ascribing it the Founding Fathers, and by implication any who admire these most admirable men. Murray, like most Libertarians, is against most post New Deal regulations and expansions of gov’t power.
On #1, you admit the fact that Black SAT (& IQ) scores are lower: “Murray and Herrnstein report the (undisputed) empirical finding that black scores on IQ tests are—as a statistical average—lower than white scores on IQ tests.” yet claim the rage against Murray is justified because of his racism. I claim that a lot of the rage is against that reality of IQ difference, which also often translates into disputing that IQ measures “smart”, or claims IQ & SAT & all math tests are “racist”.
Your Too Long screed didn’t quite define racism, but comes close in describing Murray’s thought:
“Charles Murray thinks black people are inferior to white people, and having them in socially, economically, and politically subordinate positions is acceptable…. “
Still, what is “having them”? In the case of slavery, clearly, but also Democratic Party Jim Crow laws, laws and policies that require them to be subordinate, or forbid them from equal use. That racism is Illegal, and very popularly illegal, treating two similar behaving individuals differently based on group average differences. That’s what “racism” means, and a racist is somebody who advocates that policy. Of course, as almost noted by Glenn and Sam, all Affirmative Action programs are racist, advocating promoting Blacks who are just a little bit less qualified over a White.
But how much is “just a little bit”? That’s a huge important part of the controversy that is seldom quantified, and is not done either by Murray, Loury, nor Harris, either. After CRA of 1964, the expectation was that AA positive discrimination would remove barriers and become ever less needed over time as free and natural equality led towards more equal outcomes. AA + freedom + white guilt + welfare (that rewards bad lifestyle choices with gov’t cash) has seen an increase in inequality.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/22/asian-american-admit-sat-scores/
According to The Harvard Crimson, Asian acceptance SAT scores averaged 767 (of 800), Whites at 745, Hispanics 718, Native Americans 712, while Blacks were at 704. Just under a 9% difference with a class size of about 1700, but applicant count at over 40,000. This will probably be ruled, eventually & correctly, as too much anti-Asian racist bias. I’d say about 2% max difference should be acceptable, so around 751 – already above the average admit rate of all other groups. That’s the reality, today.
[We should probably change College entrances to be more parental income based (over prior 5 years), so only 1% (17) can come from parents in the top 1%, only 10% (170) from parents in the top 10%, only 20% (340) from parents in the top 20%; and only 50% (850) from parents in the top 50%. This for schools with high endowments (over $100 million? Harvard has some $40 billion) and current reduced tax status. – such brainstorm ideas seldom make it into serious columns.]
Today racists like Kendi claim disparate impact proves racism, but only for Blacks against Whites and Asians. That stupid idea needs to be fought, strongly. Individual performance based merit causes average group difference.
Thus, the fact that Black players dominate the NBA is not racist, but performance based – Blacks on b-ball teams score more points/ win more games, than teams with more Hispanics or other less successful players.
I haven’t read Human Achievement, but your (2) points about Black musical culture seem very strong – tho it’s related to Black over-representation relative to Hispanics in selling music and being in movies. Yet I don’t remember “creative inferiority” of current Blacks being strongly attributed to Murray as reasons for rage, unlike group IQ differences.
As I read (and read & read), it’s like you can’t stop insulting and condemning Murray while eliding the key truths: a) there ARE IQ group avg differences, and b) Some of the difference IS genetic, thus unchangeable.
This Too Long comment’s conclusion was elevated to the top. To minimize racial gap differences, it’s most important for Blacks to change their own behavior – of which they are, themselves, the victims of the bad outcomes. 1) High School; 2) Marriage before babies; 3) No crime; 4) Hold a job for year.
How to get more Blacks to take these steps, as well as more Whites - that's most of the Work Glenn is talking about.
“a) there ARE IQ group avg differences, and b) Some of the difference IS genetic, thus unchangeable.”
And this is why Murray’s books are such garbage. People such as yourself come out of reading them thinking that from a) follows b), which is erroneous. All the data Murray presents in all of his books can be true, but it means nothing about whether genetics underlay disparities at all. In fact, all the data can be true and the black population can have genetics that theoretically could manifest in higher cognitive abilities than any other racial group -- given the right culture and environment. The fact that you are confident b follows from a or that b follows from the data Murray presents is evidence of your own racial bigotry. Or lack of cognitive ability. Perhaps it’s genetic. In which case it is futile you will ever understand your errors. An “intractable” problem as Murray calls it.
When I ask for a better than Bell Curve book on IQ, you fail to provide any link or reference, yet continue to insult Murray's books.
"All the data ... can be true, but it means nothing..." -- Horse manure.
Robinson is more clear: "this statement buries the fact that there are very important moral implications to the genetic question: the more the difference can be proven to be genetic in origin, the less responsible white people are for the disproportionate poverty affecting black communities. "
First there's the scientific truth, a known unknown, about the amount of IQ which is genetic versus Socio-Economic-Status (including parental relations). You claim, without evidence, genetics is essentially insignificant. (Too much argumentation on this issue, rather than current responsibility.)
Much more important is the question of how much white people, both living and dead, are responsible for today's black poverty (in the USA). There's no other country on earth where blacks have less absolute poverty, and are 10% or more of the population (as far as I know). The idea that living white people are responsible, today, for what dead white people did decades or centuries ago - this idea is totally against judging each person as an individual.
But it IS the basis of never-ending tribal warfare - which is what I see Democrats, today, trying to create.
With your help, Jeffrey. Despite your admirable honesty last year:
https://minorityreport.substack.com/p/accepting-the-obvious?s=r
about the Democrat Party being the Party of Slavery, the Jim Crow Party, the KKK Party.
Blacks who decide to commit crimes, who decide to have sex before or outside of marriage (including "open marriages"), those blacks' choices create negative results in the communities where they live. Current poverty among Blacks today is maybe 5% IQ, but 50% crime, and 40% promiscuity (5% other). Because today's crime was influenced so much by the before birth promiscuity of the current criminal's parent, others might claim even higher % for promiscuity.
Today, AA is a little racist against Whites, and for colleges is quite racist against Asians, but in favor of less qualified Blacks. In theory, this reduces Black poverty.
[This assumption might actually be false, but that's a much longer rant.]
BAD BLACK behavior is the main reason - and "structural racism" is an excuse for what should be inexcusable behavior.
"When I ask for a better than Bell Curve book on IQ, you fail to provide any link or reference, yet continue to insult Murray's books."
A book that addresses IQ disparities between racial groups, and particular the disparities of black people, better than the Bell Curve is Thomas Sowell's Black Rednecks, White Liberals. And you can be comforted to know that Thomas Sowell doesn't insult Murray's book, albeit he does correct errors and disagree with aspects of it.
""All the data ... can be true, but it means nothing..." -- Horse manure."
No, that is just the limitations of correlational data. Assessing causation can be a complicated enterprise.
"First there's the scientific truth, a known unknown, about the amount of IQ which is genetic versus Socio-Economic-Status (including parental relations). You claim, without evidence, genetics is essentially insignificant. (Too much argumentation on this issue, rather than current responsibility.)"
No, I didn't claim genetics is essentially insignificant. I claimed that it *could be* entirely irrelevant. Not just insignificant; it could have no causal relevance to the group disparities in cognitive abilities. It could also be very significant. Theoretically. Genetics could be foundational in such a way that without a conscious breeding program, the disparities could be unchangeable. While it could be that a breeding program for blacks would be required, its also possible that a breeding program for whites would be required. The data is such that influence of environment and culture could be so dramatic that blacks as a group still have the genetics that underlie superior cognitive abilities to whites or any other racial group.
It could also be true that genetics underlie individual intelligence substantially but genetics doesn't underlie the disparities of cognitive abilities between racial groups. Proving that genetics underlies the foundation of individual intelligence does not prove that group disparities in cognitive abilities are genetic.
And while I didn't state anywhere to you that genetics are irrelevant; I do indeed actually suspect they are irrelevant. As for evidence that genetics is irrelevant when it comes to *group* disparities, I provided that in a different comment here to someone else. I'll copy and paste that here, just for convenience. And I will clarify my position now: I do suspect the foundation of intelligence is genetic on an individual level but I also suspect there is no genetic basis for disparities in cognitive abilities between racial groups.
This is largely paraphrased from Sowell. Among the best evidence against the genetic basis for the disparities in cognitive abilities between racial groups is that the average performance on cognitive tests has changed substantially for populations over time. And furthermore, particular ethnic groups have changed their relative position with regard to average performance on cognitive tests when intermarriage was relatively rare.
An example - when Jews took mental tests during WW1 -- American soldiers -- they scored extraordinarily low. However within a decade they were scoring above average. And now they are far above average.
IQ tests are normalized. And this conceals a continuing trend of people on average over time answering more questions correct on cognitive tests. A person can answer the same number of questions correct today as someone 2 decades ago but the former would have an IQ of 100 and the latter an IQ 85. The number of questions “blacks” answer correctly today is similar to the number of questions answered correctly by past generations of “whites”. Blacks today are not meaningfully more different genetically than whites today than whites a few generations ago. If blacks on average differ from whites in IQ today by 15 points but blacks also differ from blacks 2 generations prior by 15 points, and if those 15 points between generations of blacks are best explained by environment why wouldn’t environment explain the difference between blacks and whites today? Since it seems environment could be *sufficient* to explain *all* the difference, why would one not only propose that genetics could theoretically explain some of the difference (it could) but also have so much confidence that genetics explains so much of the difference that it would be futile to change the environment to improve disparities? I’ve got a reason: cuz the person is racist.
"The idea that living white people are responsible, today, for what dead white people did decades or centuries ago - this idea is totally against judging each person as an individual.
But it IS the basis of never-ending tribal warfare - which is what I see Democrats, today, trying to create.
With your help, Jeffrey. Despite your admirable honesty last year"
I absolutely don't think random white people today are responsible for what particular white people did in the past. Nor have I ever suggested that. You are welcome to quote me where I do. Judging Murray racist doesn't implicate all white people. Not all white people think it is futile to invest resources into attempting to remove disparities between racial groups because they think genetics make the disparities intractable. And some white people who do believe that aren't even racist, they are just ignorant. They may have just read the Bell Curve and didn't read anything like Black Rednecks and White Liberals. Now, if they don't attempt to explore contrary opinions, arguably they are indeed racist. And ignorant. Or I guess.. maybe just intellectually lazy.
"BAD BLACK behavior is the main reason - and "structural racism" is an excuse for what should be inexcusable behavior."
Yes, I agree the aggregate behavior of black people is the main reason for the continued disparities between black people and white people, just as the aggregate behavior of white people is the main reason for the continued disparities between white people and asian people. While historical racism can explain some of the disparities in wealth, and can even explain some of the cultural dysfunction of some black people, current racism as a significant causal explanation is erroneous. Black people today are not "structurally" or "systematically" oppressed, albeit, there are still some racists within the system who sometimes harm people who are black due to racism.
And I still think Charles Murray is a racist but that he should be able to safely speak at colleges.
"Blacks who decide to commit crimes, who decide to have sex before or outside of marriage (including "open marriages"), those blacks' choices create negative results in the communities where they live."
More black people can more frequently use condoms and other forms of birth control. That would be sufficient to adequately reduce children born outside relationships or to people not committed to raising children. People needn't abstain from sex until marriage. That largely explains lower frequency of unwanted pregnancies of other racial groups. Not abstinence. While I disparage indiscriminate sexual relationships, abstinence until marriage is a perverse and worthless norm.
I just read your other article, on Sam Harris. I don't think it is *as* compelling as the Charles Murray article, but it is still very informative and has mostly good arguments.
It though is riddled with what appears to me pious tribal references to things like "Mansplaining", which is sexist. I've observed that people of a particular political tribe, who often find themselves in the Church of the Awoken, have the tendency to find the bigotry of "minorities" (which irrationally includes women), to be acceptable or even noble. Thus, the same people who think "mansplaining" isn't sexist are more likely to believe black people cannot be racist. I suspect, based on the way you wrote of "feminism" you don't hold people of particular groups to the same rigorous standards of morality or reason that you hold Charles Murray or Mr. Reasonable. That you refer to Mr. Kendi, aka Mr Ministry of [Racist] Anti-Racism, as support in an essay about the statist and totalitarian fantasies of Sam Harris is... quaint.
I'll point out one thing I found to be erroneous.
"Sam Harris constantly deploys insults (“preening,” “delusional,” “unscrupulous”), and as Dan Jones notes, his “style of argument is more about beating people down than engaging in any sort of dialogue that would help him, and others, get straight on deep, complex issues.”
Insults, like calling Charles Murray odious? I could not gather from your article whether you thought him using insults simply watered down his self-image of being Mr Reasonable, or whether you were proposing that insults undermined a person's arguments entirely. I don't think they necessarily do. Insults are *sometimes* just the "rational" outcome of what we believe and feel about people, and they aren't necessarily part of an argument. Charles Murray being odious is not an argument for why his ideas are garbage, but a judgement in response to his ideas and sentiments being garbage, which you do a good job of explaining why you think they are.
So, when Sam Harris says that "feminist epistemology" is crazy, it could just as well be a conclusion, and not a premise. Do you personally think no philosophical ideas are crazy? I doubt that. If you do, I imagine you haven't read much philosophy. I find that highly unlikely though given the breadth of your criticisms of Harris. Which means, your opposition toward Harris calling feminist epistemology crazy may be driven mostly by your attachment to your tribe. I don't know what version of feminist epistemology Sam or you are referring to, but if it supports the pseudo-popular the mind-twisting notion that "transwomen are women", it is definitely crazy. What say you? Are "transwomen" women?
...Oh, you wrote this https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/05/the-arguments-against-trans-athletes-are-bigoted-and-irrational
So I will guess your answer to my question is yes, "transwomen" are women. Its okay, you are probably just "displaying the exact intellectual blind spots so typical among men."
I would be delighted to have a conversation with you about trans philosophy and "have a dialogue that would help" you "and others, get straight on deep, complex issues."
Given Nathan's status as a devout follower of the Church of Trans, it's not really that surprising that he would believe that men can be women. But if he's seriously interested in trying to show the rest of the world how to be rationale and to recognize flaws in their arguments, he really needs to take some time to re-examine his nonsensical religious beliefs and drop the science-denying pontificating that he's picked up from the Trans Cult.
No need to guess...
Nathan wrote: 'If people become convinced that trans women do not belong in women’s sports, it reinforces the idea that trans women are not "really" women.'
Charles Murray is a racist just as certainly as Lia Thomas is a woman. I think we can all agree on that!
Lia Thomas is not a woman. Biological sex is real and it is not true that everyone who says "I am a woman" is a woman. I totally agree with Jeffrey Peoples - the notion that "transwomen are women" is mind-twisting and has absolutely nothing in common with science. The biological differences between male and female bodies are real and have real consequences.
I read the first article you linked to and will admit that while I own a copy of The Bell Curve, I haven't read it cover to cover but rather have only read sections of it and also don't have my copy with me at hand, so am operating a bit in the dark as it's been years since I last opened up the book.
Where I do agree with you is that Murray is a bit too naive in his assertion that racial differences if proven to be partly genetic should have no impact in terms of how we think about and treat our fellow human beings. Glenn has also pointed out that these kinds of racial hypotheses carry strong sociological, moral and emotional implications. This is not just another empirical assertion. I tend to excuse Murray somewhat on this matter because I've found that high IQ academic types aren't always the most in touch with the larger part of humanity.
It's understandable why many people would be offended by such an emotionally charged thesis, but that doesn't mean Murray is wrong about the facts or even that his moral framework is lacking. You don't seem to believe that Murray should be censored, which I definitely appreciate. You also don't seem to deny the possibility that racial differences could in theory be partly genetic in origin, but from your first article seem angry that Murray would express agnosticism towards the extent to which such differences are environmental versus genetic without a full accounting of the history of racism in American society towards Blacks. Such an accounting would presumably incline any decent human being towards a primarily environmental explanation for the present-day racial gaps observed in this country. You also express anger at the perceived implications of what a genetic explanation of group differences would entail, i.e., that whites would essentially be let off the hook for their historical oppression of Blacks in America.
This is the quandary that people like myself find themselves in. I'm open to the possibility that racial differences have a partly genetic basis but also don't really care to think about the matter 24/7. I'd much rather just live and let live, in the same sense that I enjoy watching the NFL without really pondering too much why ~99% of cornerbacks in the league are Black for instance. But as Glenn eloquently pointed out in his conversation with Sam, part of the reason why some people focus on the topic of group differences more than they otherwise might is that the other side operates under a blanket assumption that biological differences of any kind are basically inconceivable and that any disparity in outcomes among races is ipso facto proof of systemic racism. I find this kind of thinking to be a stretch.
I agree that the sociological and moral implications of the nature/nurture debate are particularly thorny but feel like the topic of race has muddied these issues quite a bit. I’m assuming that you’re more okay with Murray’s thesis where it touches not upon race but upon individuals, but don’t want to misrepresent your views. If we take a step back from the vexed matter of race, I find it hard to believe that any reasonable person could argue that at least among individuals there aren’t meaningful differences in intelligence and motivation and that these traits aren’t correlated with tangible real-life outcomes. You seem annoyed by Murray’s embrace of the notion of the natural aristocracy and its paternalistic view that everyone has their station in life, but I wonder if a more enlightened and realistic attitude towards individual differences in fact doesn’t make society better off.
One of the things that many people have argued against in this country is the sort of Yale or jail mindset whereby it’s assumed that everyone needs to go to a 4-year college and aspire to be a superstar in life. In my opinion a lot of that kind of thinking is motivated by left-wing Blank Slate egalitarian views that argue that anyone can basically become anything under the right circumstances. But feel free to point out that I'm just peddling a caricature here. From what I’ve read they do a much better job emphasizing vocational training in countries like Germany and Japan. Is this precisely not the kind of enlightened social policy that would be more likely to be implemented under the operational and moral framework espoused by someone like Charles Murray? I personally found his book Real Education to be particularly informative.
My main impression is that you don’t so much disagree with Murray as a matter of empirical fact, although as I stated above you clearly believe he ignores a vast amount of racial history when he expresses agnosticism towards the extent to which group differences are rooted in biology as opposed to environment. Rather I get the feeling that you’re mostly angry about the sorts of value judgments Murray makes when for instance he valorizes IQ and intelligence in a particular rhetorical way or when he passes judgment on matters of artistic or musical merit.
I can sympathize in part with where you're coming from but don’t believe that these sorts of value judgments make Charles Murray a racist. At worst some of his views are a bit parochial and reveal a bias for the particular milieu that he grew up in. But I'm no more offended by Murray's opinions on art than I would be by someone who felt that Japanese anime was the epitome of artistic excellence. To each his own.
I truly believe deep down that Murray harbors no malice towards any particular ethnic group, which quite frankly I wouldn't say about other individuals who might be described as being part of the alt-right. And that I would argue is what constitutes the essence of racism.
“Murray would express agnosticism towards the extent to which such differences are environmental versus genetic without a full accounting of the history of racism in American society towards Blacks. “
Yet this is not true. Murray is not agnostic about it. He has confidence that genetics underlie the differences. He expresses this clearly in the interview with Coleman Hughes. He suspects the disparities are due to genetics to such an extent that he believes it would be futile for any social efforts to end those disparities.
He downplays that faith of his. Glenn Loury shouldn’t.
I concur. I read your article on current affairs. It is much better and more interesting scholarship than the Bell Curve.
And it is obnoxious that those who praise Charles Murray and insist that he isn’t racist have discussed Charles Murray with Charles Murray but have never to my knowledge discussed Charles Murray with any articulate critic of Charles Murray. How about Glenn brings on you, Nathan Robinson, to his show to discuss Charles Murray and his ideas?
I’d suggest myself but who is Jeffrey Peoples?